


Traces

by imperfectkreis



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, First Time, Loss of Virginity, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 18:53:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4716758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectkreis/pseuds/imperfectkreis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fic for <a href="http://hawkesdaughter.tumblr.com">Hawkesdaughter</a> on tumblr for giveaway. Sheridan Lavellan and Solas reach a turning point in their relationship, after a stream of whispers and touches. She finally pushes him into action.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traces

Her fingers are cold. Even when she uses them to cast flames, Sheridan feels like the tips could snap off, one by one. Cassandra says she should wear gloves. There are woolly mittens in her pack, but she's unsure she can cast with them on. So she'll let her digits freeze.

The party reaches the Bridge camp, full of people and fires, warmth and food. Creators, she could use some food. They've been marching through the Emprise for hours, smashing apart pockets of Red Lyrium before they can spread, infect everything around them. It's tedious work, and somehow doesn't seem fitting for "the Inquisitor," but Sheridan won't make her agents do anything she's not willing to undertake herself.

The evening meal is mashed root and thin slices of roasted goat. For transport from the Hinterlands the meat was dried, but it's wet now, mocking moistness. Sheridan doesn't really mind. She digs into it with her hands, licking excess mash from her fingers. She smiles as her stomach fills. Oh, it's so good to be sitting down, even if the log is hard. It's next to the fire and her toes are starting to loosen in her boots. Still feels weird to wear boots. Better than losing her toes, though.

She sits by the fire longer than she needs to. A courier brings her a second coat. It's heavy, thick, dark fur with silk lining. Too big for her shoulders. She's never seen it before. The courier tells her Solas instructed him to bring it to her. Sheridan dips her nose against the fur, letting it tickle. A gift, then.

\--

The Bridge camp is big enough that the Inquisitor has her own tent. An agent has already filled the central pit with hot stones that will keep her warm through the night, petering out into the chill of morning.

Sheridan strips from her coats down to her mage robes. She's still not certain about them, even these months later. They feel like too much fabric, too human pressing down on her skin and curling through her veins. She doesn't like reminders of her mother's indiscretions.

When the robes come off, her night shift goes on just as quick. It's too cold in the Emprise to sleep naked, but the shift is hideous, just hideous. It's brown and, while soft, does nothing for her figure. But at least she's alone. She wiggles her bare toes just on the edge of the rocks, letting the warmth fill her up until it reaches her thighs.

"Inquisitor?" Solas asks permission to enter. Letting him in will let the heat out, but it's a concession she's willing to weather. 

Sheridan hops away from the fire to unbuckle the tent flap. Her hands make short work of the loops, yanking them free. She pulls the flap just enough to let Solas in. Behind him, the wind whips against the rocks. She can hear the snow crackling as it smacks against solid surfaces. The wind gets in to the tent before she can reseat the buckles. Only when she is done does she turn to face Solas. Her bare feet are cold again.

"Yes? What do you need?" She smiles, happy enough to see her friend.

Friend. She rolls the word around her skull. That's not quite right. More than that. She thinks on the kisses, few and far between but vivid and close to her. His whispers about her beauty, her determination. The way his eyes follow her across the field of battle, or here at camp. But friend, somehow friend, while not quite right, still says a great deal.

"Oh good," he ignores her question, walking across the tent to pick up the fur coat from the floor. "You received the coat. Today you appeared to be cold." He takes the garment in both hands, spreading it over her shoulders, fastening it in front by the topmost latch. It blots out the terrible shift, maybe. "I thought it a suitable gift. And practical." 

There is a smile just at the corner of his mouth. Sheridan leans forward to peck it away, or maybe let it grow. She keeps her hands fisted in the fur at the flaps of the coat. It's soft between her fingers.

When she pulls back he's still smiling, hands drifting to her shoulders, then back up. His fingers press into her neck, thumbs on either side holding her posture straight. He pulls her in again, and this time it is not the corners that touch, but the full breadth of their mouths. Sheridan parts her lips first. She wants to show she's willing, eager. Releasing the coat, she clutches to him instead. His robes feel too thin for the weather, his bones too hard under that. He's a range of textures that have never added up quite right. But even with all her questions, his answers fall just short.

She asks with her touches, not her voice, 'Do you love me?' 

Solas stops. He always stops, just short. Sheridan is ready to fall off the precipice but he never lets her. 

"Don't stop, please," she wants her voice to be teasing, not desperate. "Please, please," she laughs like a spoiled child. But she isn't. She isn't spoiled and she isn't a child. But she wants him very badly. Not just in kisses and in gifts.

"They will talk." Solas tugs his fingers through her dark hair. He moves from root to the ends. With his eyes half-lidded, she cannot see his iris. She wants to believe he is considering it.

She pulls at the front of his robes, parting them just an inch or so where the buckle is already loose. "They already talk."

"Oh?" Solas sounds amused. "I have not noticed."

"Then you can continue not noticing after you have bedded me." Sheridan bites the tip of her tongue between her teeth. 

She takes her hands to his wrists, directing him where to touch against her body. It's clumsy, the way she does it. Not because she's clumsy, but because she moves too fast, pressing his palms against her chest. 

"Come on, what do you have to lose?" she asks.

In a way, she knows she has won when his touch traces her nipple through her shift. First one, then the other. They stand together stiff-still, but Sheridan swears she's running a hundred miles an hour the way her heart thuds. Because, yes, YES. This is her victory. 

"It's very cold out. You should stay."

"Perhaps I should." Solas' hands drop to his sides.

Sheridan is about to protest. Why? Why when they were so close? But her protest withers as he pulls her close, rucking up the back of her shift. It's only enough to expose her legs, nothing more. 

Her fingers search for his buckles. She doesn't know where they are. Forsaken robes are never standard! They get all lost in fabric and feathers and fur. She reaches for anything cold, metal. One comes loose, but now she can't find the other. Solas laughs. It's short. But he's happy. She'll be a lot happier when she finds the next one.

Solas finds the straps himself, unhooking them with one hand. But he lets her part the fabric. She touches against bare skin. It feels paper thin, like he could burst from beneath it. She wants, oh, she wants to believe she does this to him.

"To bed," he whispers in her ear, his breath hot against it. 

Sheridan nods, dropping the heavy coat from her shoulders. Solas grabs it before it can hit the floor. He tosses it onto her cot, letting it cover her sheets. 

"I will undress you, yes?" he asks. There isn't much to remove. She wears the shift and nothing more.

Solas pulls the ugly thing up over her head, mussing her hair. It sticks a bit with the static electricity. 

Being bare before him doesn't feel strange, or exposed. The lamp at her table is still bright, casting shadows across them both. Sheridan would never be ashamed of her nakedness. Her body has never felt foreign. Even like this, before a man, she is nothing but free and joyous. She cocks her hip to one side. She wants to see him too.

"And now you?" she demands with a question.

"You really are wondrous. Like no one else who has walked this ground." 

That brings a bit of color to her cheeks. It's quite precious, quite sincere, his words. 

Sheridan pulls apart his loosened robes until they fall to the floor in a puddle at his feet. Solas is pale everywhere, but she knew that. His veins are quite bright. She wonders if she can read them like stars across the sky, patterns of existence. The roads he has walked.

There's something else too. Of course there is. He's hard. He wants her as she has always wanted him. Since that first moment in the Frostbacks, the Breach an angry scar above their heads. She didn't know then, like, know-know. Only she was quite certain he was part of her grand adventure. He was part of this great and wondrous person she would become. That was enough to make her want him. But the months between them made this more.

"I should not bring you to such distraction, Inquisitor." Oh, but he already has. More of a distraction now not to fall from the edge. She'll put herself back together after. Make herself even better.

She presses both palms to his chest, pushing him back to the cot. It's narrow, but not prohibitively so. He lets her press his back to the fur, fanning out from his weight, sinking between the empty places his body does not occupy.

Sheridan climbs atop him, her legs spread about his hips. She grabs at the fur around his head, lowering her full lips to his. His cock brushes against her stomach when it jumps to her contact. 

"You have not done this before," Solas states it as fact, not question.

"And does that matter, to you?" She can find no embarrassment within herself.

"Often times, in those influenced by humans and their customs, it means something."

She wants to respond that she's not. Not influenced by shems. But it would only start an argument. Solas does not think the Dalish free from contamination. 

"This is us. That is what carries meaning for me. That this is you, Solas. And I, Sheridan."

He takes hold of her hips, angling her so that she is visible to him, open. With one long finger he breaches her. She is wet already. He strokes until her toes curl, adding a second. Keeping a hand against her belly, he focuses his concentration on the twitch of her body. Sheridan breathes to keep her heart from splitting apart. It feels just like it might. 

"Please, more." Her voice cracks though she does not mean to it. Only her stomach is warm and the cool air is against her back. She puts her hands on his chest and asks for "more."

"Of course," he smiles.

He pulls his fingers, slick with her, and puts them to her hip. She slides forward until she is over his cock. When she closes her eyes, it is unintentional. He is watching her, she watching him, until she sinks to blackness by accident.

Her eyes open again, crisp clear. She can feel her heart beat in her ears. She can feel his with her palms against his chest. 

Solas coaxes her to move first, lifting her hips before sliding back down. She feels full, wonderfully so. More than that she feels close, so wrapped up in Solas, in them. She smiles, spreading her fingers wide against him. He chases her movements, thrusting up to meet her as she pulls away. Like they're running after each other, between the trees of an unnamed forest. Something she can't remember. She wants to be caught.

The lamps fade, light burning lower, lower. The oil will dry up. Leave them in the dark.

Before that time passes, she wants to see him come. She wants to know his pleasure, and for him to know hers. 

The trace of his flesh against hers leave licks of sensation that fade too fast. Skittering against her skin. His touch is everywhere at once, blooming.

Sheridan feels her tangle of arousal start to come unwound. Solas touches at her clit, lighter that she would like. She bucks into him, stretching for more.

And it's right there, the way he speaks her name. "Sheridan." And she's gone, taking him with her.

He flips her over, her back hitting against the tangle of silk and fur. The cotton sheets under that. She's pinned beneath him as he thrusts deep. Not for long. It doesn't take him long. 

Her eyes are closed again. She didn't mean to close them. When they open, she sees his smile. He's drawing circles around her hip. He's calling her beautiful.

Between her legs she's sticky, her head swimming with affect that cannot yet be wrangled into words. Solas kisses her shoulder. He asks her if she needs anything.

"You, just you."

Solas waves one hand, bringing the lamps back up without the aid of oil. They're too bright. She shields her eyes.

"When this is all done. You will remember me." Solas doesn't ask it.

Sheridan nods, because she can't yet imagine another way.

**Author's Note:**

> Sheridan is [Hawkesdaugher's](http://hawkesdaughter.tumblr.com) Inquisitor. You can also find me on tumblr at [Imperfectkreis](http://imperfectkreis.tumblr.com)


End file.
